The City

There's a bridge, 

It's big and tall and red
City lights & neon signs
on at the diner and its 3am.
The waters black below
The sky lit up and glittering with specks of icy rain
Shadow of the tallest tree
hangs sullen and trapped
cast down to the park beneath
Where children laugh and play by day
and addicts reach their high at night. 
 

Breathe

I have been here before, this bridge this river the frozen over lake.
Ice skates.
Skidding down.  Cold and wet, bitter taste of dirty ice.
Slicing.  Slicing, sharp blade engraving circles into hardened white and it all could break and you could fall away.
Become trapped inside and frozen into its being.
Circle, circle, until you're dizzy.  You used to like the feeling.
Hurry, warm me up.  I am bleeding.
Crimson turns the snow, its crunches under our feet.
I felt it in me then, so deep and heavy.
And we played pretend.
But all the time the ice was breaking
And it dangled down, came undone.
I thought I knew what I was feeling
but it slowly faded into something more unknown than death,
it was purely life.
It felt like absolutely everything
lingering, waiting to become its own, separate from the others.
Strings, strings coming out of me.  I'm coming undone.
Cracking, do you hear it?
The ice, it can't bear this weight any more.
I can't bear it any more.
Spinning and gliding
the melody of blowing winds and ringing bells
they hang above your head
chiming and signaling the change of the season
but you understand less than you ever have just what this means
The ice is water
transformation is fixed
And under the old bridge, the river returns
But now you go with it, away from this place.

Dear Bikram Yoga class, Fuck you.

Dear Bikram Yoga class,
I usually love you, adore you, hey, even crave you!
But today, I hated you.  The dirty carpet, all I could think of during vapassana was how many drops of sweat have been dripped into its fibers, saturating and drenching them.  Then I thought, how exactly do they clean this carpet at the end of the day.  After 100's of people have dripped buckets of their sweat into the floor.  Do they vacuum, put down baking soda?  Carpet powder? Actually, I bet they do nothing.

I usually like your energy, my dear bikram yoga class, it feels communal, supportive and strangely fun.  But today, you were a god damn competition.  Who are these fuckers anyway?  "Let's totally do six classes in one day!!!!"  Miss 50 year old arrogant mid-life crisis woman, does it feel good to know you have the full support of all the other crazy bitches in here?  Even though its blatantly obvious that you would probably suffer from a heart attack if you attempted to do 9 hours straight of Bikram.  Actually, youd probably die of dehydration first.

I usually like who teaches you, bikram yoga class.  But today I was not a fan.  "Um do you think you could make it a while longer without drinking any water?"  Um no, I don't.  I'm thirsty.  And do you realize that you are causing way more of a disturbance to the class by pointing out the fact that I am taking a drink of water than the actual act of me taking a sip silently in the corner!!!
And what about the ten lazy people in the back, parked on their asses drinking water for the ENTIRE class?
Why exactly is it that you are always a bitch to me when I come to your class?
Note to self: Look up instructors name and NEVER attend her stupid class again.

I usually can do all your poses with grace and simultaneous force but today I just couldn't.  Slip.  I kept slipping.  Topple, I kept toppling.

Add in the fact that I was gagging on the putrid release of toxins from the bodies of 50 people around me, and a few other hideous factors, and yah, I hated you today Bikram.

But I'll be back and hopefully we will both present ourselves differently, and rediscover what we once had.

Intuition

But what when it's blocked?
Intuition, intuition- listen to your intuition.
That feeling inside, let it guide.

A slow disintegration
That starts with the failure of your earliest missions
The realization that nothings what it seems
and that often you can't trust even your own vision

A late night exploration
The bathroom lit with candles and the faucet dripping
water rebounds off ancient porcelain,
the drip drop echos the cold stillness of an unheated house
the sits alone in the depths of winter snow

The flickering yellow mixed with the black creates a dark warm orange that glimmers on the mirror
And your reflection looks strangely unfamiliar
and it furthers itself then
the extraction of belief in the self
the severing of connection from the source
the doubt begins to sink in.

A line, a smooth thin line, is drawn
between you and what you once thought you were
and intuition mimics when you question yourself
and you question him

Once, I wanted to fade into everything you were
Once, intuition told me yes
But the yes faded into no's
as the distance furthered between candles,
unlit on an uneven layered birthday cake
I wonder when it was I lost you
and how to find you again
When yes means no, and no is yes, and I keep going on and on,
over it and over it again in my head
And no answer ever seems true
But doubt in my own intuition.

Dreams

I close my eyes,
A quest to fall asleep.
To travel to that darkened place where rest will finally greet.

I close my eyes,
and I see owls, white ghosts against the black backdrop of night.
I feel my chest, rise and fall, rise and fall.

I see ocean waves beating against resilent shores, an intricate dance of give and take.

I hear you calling my name, from the porch.
I see you standing and I feel the sun as I run run run to climb into your arms.

I remember swinging, an old willow tree, the giant quiet witness to all of my childhood memories.
I drove by a few years ago and she was gone.

It was all gone, but somewhere beneath the new paint, beneath the new barn, new fence, new car, I could see it in the framework, but it wasn't what it once was.

And everything changes, everything goes, everyone goes.
A moment of existence, once lived- it passes away forever.

But I remember it somewhere, inside my little head,
and at night it greets me,
calls to me, beckons me home, back to that ruined place as if I could somehow now fix it.

I never believed I could.

I slip from the hold of silent soft owls, their feathers white as snow,
away from that home I used to know

and into a river its currents carrying me away.
Pages and pages of paper, sprawled over with written words, ride along with me.
I struggle to hold on to the steep canyon ridges, but the water is determined to pull me along.

Then suddenly a switch, I'm dry and up high,
high on a cliff, its night and stars glitter above, able to show their true light against the absolute darkness

I walk up to the ledge.  Teeter at the edge.
Owls fly near and close, I can see my old home below.
I let go.

But instead of falling, I go up up up, and into full flight, one with the night.

Night, meet me on the couch.

To sit, still, the only motion the rising and falling of your chest as you breathe in, out, in and out.
To see the disappearance of daylight, the gradual procession, the layers of light, the stages that the falling sun sets.
To witness it, calm, quiet.

The race of the train over tracks, clickety-clack, clickety-clack.
The shuddering of old window panes.
The softness of the couch as it sinks to embrace your body.
The slight quiver of the tree as it loses its leaves in this cold winter weather.
The stroke of grey, painted over the white, the black and the blue colors race into your eyes.

They mix together to form infinity.

A gentle subsession, an aching progression, as day yields to night.
And a body so full with the wonderful wisdom
of what it means to be alive.

India

She lays down
Now surrounded by piles of leaves.
If she closes her eyes she can imagine India.
The smells of curry and the slight warm breeze, that challenges the heavy heat.
She can hear the rythmic music,
finds it strangely difficult to catch the beat.
She can see into the swampy forest,
where a tiger crouches low.
She can see into his eyes and she becomes aware of herself in their reflection.
She has dark skin, dark hair and dark eyes.
But she feels just the same,
as the girl she left behind-
Surrounded by the turn of seasons, the death of summer as Autumn brings the colors of red, yellow and orange,
the colors she wears now.